Look out Moto and LG, you no longer have a monopoly on good looking, round smartwatches – thanks to the guys and gals at Huawei.

The Huawei Watch was leaked in some promo materials yesterday, and since then it has managed to get quite a bit of attention. Following the initial leak, Huawei released two promo videos, then pulled them.

There is still no word on the specs on pricing, but the Huawei Watch looks like it can give the Moto 360 and LG G Watch R/Urbane a run for their money. It’s an all-metal 42mm design, with a number of metallic and leather straps. The watch ticks all the right boxes – sapphire glass on top of a water resistant, stainless steel body available in black, silver and gold.

We can’t say much about the spec, but we don’t expect any big surprises, since practically all Android Wear watches feature similar specs. The price is what we’re really interested in.

Come to think of it, the timing of the leak and the amount of images and video, sans specs, makes me wonder whether or not this was an intentional leak. Weekend ahead of MWC? No specs or pricing, promo videos pulled? Seems like a very convenient “leak” for Huawei, or a masterful PR campaign bound to get the company a lot more coverage than a dull also-ran announcement.

Anyway, one of the videos was re-uploaded and you can check it out. If you find the second one with a live link, please share it in the comment section.

The Mobile World Congress looks like it is going to be packed to the gunnels with people trying to peddle their version of the smartwatch.

We are expecting models from Samsung and HTC, but it seems that now Acer is going to throw its hat into the ring. Acer released a teaser which suggests that its watch will have a camera which is all you ever wanted from a watch.

Of course not making an appearance at the show will be the Apple iWatch. As you will be aware Apple invented the iWatch years before its rivals even thought of it. Of course it has been a bit late getting its iWatch into the shops. In fact it might be around sometime this year, maybe, if you are really good.

When Jobs' Mob really does get its watch into the shops it will be nearly a year behind all its rivals, particularly if they are starting to put things like cameras in them.

Broadcom has announced a new smartwatch platform, designed to cut the power consumption in Android Wear devices.

This is not a single chip we are talking about, Broadcom’s platform includes a total of five parts. It will be showcased at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week.

Broadcom smartwatch SoC based on Cortex A7

The company did not release the full spec of its new SoC, but it did give us a rough idea of what to expect. The unnamed chip sports four Cortex-A7 cores, just like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 400, which powers the majority of Android Wear devices out there.

The chip also has a 2G/3G modem, but support for the modem is currently lacking in Android Wear. Oddly enough, support is still not available for NFC, WiFi and camera, but Broadcom is offering all of the above four additional chips.

The BCM4343 is WiFi and Bluetooth 4.2/Bluetooth Smart combo chip, the BCM4773 packs a GPS SoC with an integrated sensor hub, while BCM20795 and BCM59350 bring support for NFC and secure element functionality, and wireless charging support respectively.

So what makes Broadcom’s platform different?

The company claims its new smartwatch platform reduces power usage by up to 40 over the previous generation, while using a smaller form-factor and enabling OEMs to include a larger battery in their smartwatch.

The company expects strong growth in the smartwatch space, and thinks its new platform, with improved power efficiency and an optimized bill of materials (BOM) has what it takes to capture a slice of the market.

"Smartwatches represent a big piece of the wearable pie, and Broadcom's new platform expands opportunities for Android Wear developers designing both high-end and affordable devices."

The new platform is already sampling and will be showcased at MWC 2015, but we still don’t know when to expect the first smartwatches based on Broadcom’s new silicon.

If you think you’ve heard similar power efficiency and size reduction claims in the past, you’re right. A few weeks ago MediaTek announced the MT2601 smartwatch SoC, claiming a similar reduction in physical footprint and power consumption. Like Broadcom’s new smartwatch platform, MediaTek’s MT2601 is still not commercially available.

Japan Display Inc. (JDI) has announced a new smartwatch display that could lead to substantial battery life improvements.

The company said the new display will consume about 0.5% of what a comparable screen based on conventional LCD technology would need. The first unit has a 320x300 resolution and it’s a circular panel, with a diameter of 1.34 inches. As you can see, it’s not a perfectly round display, and there’s a small cut-out at the bottom, like on Motorola’s Moto 360, while the diameter is quite similar to LG's P-OLED display on the G Watch R.

JDI has not released the rest of the spec, so we can only guess at how it managed to create such a frugal display. We do know that it’s a reflective design, so it harnesses ambient light instead of traditional backlighting technology.

There is no word on brightness, contrast, or the number of colours the screen can support.

The good news is that reflective technology can drastically reduce power consumption, but there are a number of downsides. JDI announced a few reflective LCD displays a couple of years ago and they were capable of reproducing 5-36% of the NTSC colour gamut. Their contrast ratio was 30:1.

Sadly, we have no specs for the new smartwatch display, so we can only make an educated guess at this point – based on the company’s previous models.

In any case, JDI said the new tech would be ready to ship sometime next month. Coupled with more frugal small-core chipsets like MediaTek’s Aster, the technology could enable smartwatches capable of running a few days on a single charge, but great display quality, advanced features or elaborate operating systems like Android Wear would be off the table.

The smartwatch is still in its infancy, but analysts are already bullish, and many expect the market to take off in 2015, thanks to the upcoming Apple Watch launch, as well as new Android Wear devices.

According to Allied Market Research, the global smartwatch market will reach $32.9 billion by the end of the decade. The compound annual growth (CAGR) is estimated at 67.6% from 2014 through 2020.

“The global market is witnessing a huge inflow in the number of companies and is expected to grow manifold from the existing number of 40 companies at present,” the research firm said.

While the report looks encouraging, it should be noted that smartwatch sales in 2014 were abysmal. It’s estimated that Android Wear sales in 2014 amounted to just 720,000 units. On the other hand, the most compelling Android Wear devices launched in the latter part of the year.

Analysts have high hopes for the upcoming Apple Watch, which is due to launch in April. Analysts expect sales of up to ten million units by the end of the year.

Swiss watchmaker Swatch is planning to launch a smartwatch within three month, and the company says its device won’t have to be charged.

Swatch chief exec Nick Hayek announced the product in an interview, reports Bloomberg. He also added that the watch will allow users to make payments, which is probably where the NFC comes into play.

Hayek said the watch will work with Windows and Android phone, but did not mention iOS devices. Swatch’s timeframe means that the device will launch by the time Apple launches its Apple Watch, which is expected to appear sometime in April.

Apparently the device won’t have to be charged, which means Swatch is using an alternative way of powering the device and a very different hardware platform compared to Apple Watch and Android Wear watches. There is no word on how Swatch plans to do this, the company could use a kinetic or solar approach.

Top Fudzilla engineers also proposed a third way, in the form of a small, 3D-printed turbine inserted in the user’s vein inside a titanium stent housing. Codenamed Counter Dracula, we are already working to patent the first cholesterol-powered wearable with the USPTO.

Apple’s iWatch is already set to be out-of-date before it hits the shops. Sony is working on a new smartwatch where the entire surface -- the watch face and wrist band -- would act as a display.

The smartwatch uses e-paper and it is not exactly clear how the e-paper, or electronic paper, will operate. Bloomberg said it is different from traditional e-ink displays found on e-readers and other devices. Sony's emerging technologies division, which aims to develop new products that are profitable and trendsetters in the market, is handling the development of the smartwatch. It could be available as soon as next year.

Bloomberg, which is a card carrying member of the Tame Apple Press, insists that Apple has nothing to fear because… well… because Apple is best and everyone else smells of Nintendo. Sony will emphasize style over technology and focus on consumers who do not require all the latest bells and whistles, said the report. We would have thought style over technology was Apple’s target market.

It pointed out that Sony needs help boosting its business after having to slash it TV and mobile phone lineups in order to cut costs, reported Reuters, and focus on bringing in revenue from its PlayStation 4 video game console and image sensor businesses.

It seems that watchmakers are not happy with one trend in wearable computers which is to make portable computers or phones look like watches.

Mondaine, Michael Kors, Omega, and other big name watch brands have all issued takedown requests in the past few month. One of the most litigious watchmakers is Richemont, the company behind Cartier and Panerai, which is issuing notices against watch face websites citing breach of trademark rights. Site owners are given 24 hours to remove the infringing content before further action is taken.

Digital smartwatches make swapping watch faces as simple as making a few clicks in an app so it is a doddle to mimic a big-name brand. This is not the first time a watchmaker maker has sued over a tech company stealing its ideas. Mondaine sued Apple for stealing one of its designs in iOS 6, forcing the smartphone maker to pay a reported $21 million in licensing fees.

So far, it appears most watch face websites are conforming to any takedown requests. Who knows perhaps IT watch designers will come up with something original.

However, the forecast also examines the possibility of sustaining 2014-2015 growth in the long term.

If consumers discover a 'key use case' or cases for smartwatches, backed by more product releases on the back of higher demand, higher growth could be sustained. In plain English, if people actually find a use for smartwatches, they will see more growth.

Unfortunately the case is hard to make at this point. Smartwatches face a number of hardware limitations and software support is still limited, which means they are not very useful at the moment. Juniper expects more vendors to integrate GPS, NFC and other technologies, but the downside is that smartwatches are not expected to become very cheap. The firm estimates premium branding and high functionality to keep prices at $200+ until the end of the decade.

Europeans not too keen

One possible application that could generate more demand comes in the form of mobile payments. Apple Pay is coming to the Apple Watch, but the service will be limited to the US for quite a while and Apple won't have an easy time launching it in other markets, where it enjoys a much lower market share.

The problem with mobile digital wallets is that they have not taken off yet. What's more, new research indicates that Europeans are not sold on the idea of smartwatch wallets.

The survey, carried out by German market research firm GfK, found that just 20 percent of Germans and 27 percent of Britons are interested in contactless payments built into a watch. However, Chinese and American consumers are more open to the idea, with 40 and 54 percent saying they are interested.

Most consumers said they are interested in health applications and many said they would store identification data on their smartwatches.

The Pebble smartwatch campaign on Kickstarter was one of the biggest ones to date and the company managed to raise 100 times more funding than it initially expected. Now it says it managed to ship over 400,000 units worldwide and the recently released Pebble Steel will definitely help push that number even further.

Yesterday, Pebble also slashed US $20 off the Pebble Steel with Leather Band, pulling it down to a still quite steep US $249. Of course, Pebble was one of the first usable and "good" smartwatches on the market and soon, it will be getting some serious competition from big players with Google Android Wear.

On the other hand, Pebble had a decent head start and currently has over 1,000 apps and 12,000 registered developers and hopefully Pebble Steel is just the begining.